People watch as goons kill man on street in Coimbatore

A police officer on Wednesday slammed people for insensitivity after four men assaulted a man fatally on a busy street in this Tamil Nadu city even as dozens of motorists simply watched the horrific murder.

A police officer on Wednesday slammed people for insensitivity after four men assaulted a man fatally on a busy street in this Tamil Nadu city even as dozens of motorists simply watched the horrific murder.

The daylight brutality in Coimbatore on Sunday was caught on a closed circuit television camera mounted at a traffic junction.

The video showed two men on the road deliberately coming in the way of a motorcyclist who lost balance and fell on the road.

In no time, two others joined them and they together assaulted the victim. One man was seen stabbing him while another attacker hurled a huge rock on his head.

Police said the victim, Santhosh, 29, had earlier beaten one of the attackers, Krishan, at a liquor bar near the Sai Baba Colony.

A furious Krishnan then called his friends Ganesan, Murugan and Ramachandran to commit the murder, police said. Santhosh is survived by his wife and a one-and-a-half-year-old child.

Coimbatore's Deputy Commissioner of Police S. Nijamuddin hit out at those who watched the gory killing - there were many bystanders and motorists who had stopped at the junction - but did not intervene.

"The people there should have tried to stop (the killers)," the officer told CNN-IBN news channel.

He said compared to the four killers, there were many more motorists and pedestrians, who watched the crime but did nothing. "It is a sorry state that none came forward to help the boy (who died)."

Another police officer said some autorickshaw drivers took the profusely bleeding victim to a hospital, where he died Monday.

People in Coimbatore expressed disgust.

"People's attitude as seen on CCTV is really shocking. People have no time for others," said one banker who did not want to be identified by name.